Today’s douchebag is Rachael Ray. Right off the bat it irritates me that she has to put that extra ‘a’ in her first name. But I guess I should take that up with her mother since she named her. So Rachel with an extra A claims to have these 30 minute meals. She claims that each of these meals can be executed from start to finish in 30 minutes or less. She has a show on the Food Network where she demonstrates this.  Shocking as it might be, I love watching cooking shows. Shocking because my domestic abilities are severely lacking, and it was obvious from a very young age. In 6th grade, I had a home economics class and 2 of our projects were to sew sweatpants and make a meal using rice. My sweatpants ended up only having 1 leg and I asked the teacher if I could just order in Chinese takeout rather than stand over the stove.  Crap, now I’m craving moo shoo chicken from Shun Lee in NYC and I’m pretty sure they don’t deliver to Orlando.

So back to Rachael Ray and her 30 minute meals. I decided to try one of these meals out one night, and here’s what I quickly realized. On the show she’ll be like, “So now we just need to peel and cut these potatoes, chop the parsley, and slice the onion.”  Just as she starts peeling the first potato, she says, “I’ll finish all this and see ya back here in a few.”  This is when she cuts to commercial. So then about 3-4 minutes go by, and when she comes back from commercial, miraculously all her potatoes are peeled and cut, her parsley is chopped, and her onions are sliced. And if you look at her face, not a tear in her eye. I’ve cut onions a few times. After I look like just watched the movie Beaches while PMS, and if I had camera-ready makeup on, my mascara would be running so much I’d look like a zombie chef. I have a sneaking suspicion there was a non-paid intern running around looking like he or she watched Beaches, or since the intern is probably half my age and never heard of ‘Beaches,’ let’s go with ‘The Notebook.’ Who’s she kidding, most of her stuff is peeled, washed, and chopped for her.  And even if she did do some of it herself, she’s a professional, I’m not, clearly it would take me much longer. It would be like asking Lindsay Lohan to spell. It’s just not in her skill set.

I have no problem with Rachael teaching us how to make these meals, and appreciate her attempt to make them quick and easy, but don’t promise 30 minutes and make me feel inadequate when it takes me 44 minutes.  Call the show “30 minute or so meals.”  Or “30 minute-ish meals”.  She also invented something called the “spoonula” which is half spoon, half spatula that she often uses. Let’s face it, it’s a total red-headed stepchild  to the “spork” which is just plain awesome. For all these reasons, Rachael Ray, you are the douchebag of the day.